Valerie Heather Weiss is an American filmmaker and producer.

Early life

Valerie Weiss is an accomplished filmmaker and scientist. She was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended Princeton University, where she majored in molecular biology. She got a Ph.D. in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and a master's degree in medical sciences from Harvard Medical School. While at Harvard, she founded and was the filmmaker-in-residence and festival director of the Dudley House Film Program, the organization's film program for graduate students from 1999 to 2003.^[1] Later she was accepted to the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women, where she made a sci-fi social satire film called Transgressions.^[1]

PhD Productions

In 2004 Weiss founded PhD Productions, a film company, with her husband Robert Johnson.^[2]

Personal life

Valerie met her future husband Robert Johnson at Princeton as cast members in the production of Cyrano de Bergerac.^[3]

Accolades

Valerie directed the "Ad Astra Per Aspera" episode in Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which fans hailed as one of the best Star Trek courtroom episodes ever.^[4]

Prior to directing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Valerie directed multiple episodes on the first three seasons of Outer Banks (TV series) and her fourth feature film, Mixtape, for Netflix.^[5] Mixtape, starring Julie Bowen, Gemma Allen, and Nick Thune received a 100% Fresh score from Rotten Tomatoes as well as being listed as one of the top family films of 2021 by the Washington Post and Common Sense Media.^[6]

As a director, Valerie combines her commercial sensibility with weightier topics as she did in Mixtape- a family dramedy about grief, and in her third feature, The Archer, a feminist action film about the real-life Kids for Cash scandal in the private prison system. Reminiscent of First Blood meets Thelma and Louise, The Archer premiered at the 2017 SXSW Film Festival.^[7]

Valerie's second feature, A Light Beneath Their Feet, was widely acclaimed. Critic John Anderson says in his Thompson on Hollywood Indiewire review of A Light Beneath Their Feet, "Not only does director Valerie Weiss's latest effort straddle several genres simultaneously—among them, the coming-of-age drama and the social critique—it also features a pair of break-out performances: Madison Davenport, who plays high-schooler Beth Gerringson; and Taryn Manning ("Orange Is the New Black"), who plays Beth's mother, Gloria ... Manning, under Weiss's direction, puts a spin on Gloria that distinguishes her from similarly unstable characters."^[8]

A Light Beneath Their Feet also received a rave review from The Hollywood Reporter, calling it, "A sensitive and moving depiction of a family dealing with mental illness." "Featuring standout performances by Taryn Manning as a woman with bipolar disorder and Madison Davenport as her teenage daughter grappling with whether or not to take flight, A Light Beneath Their Feet will strike particular chords among the many who have had similar personal experiences."^[9]

Matt Fagerholm of RogerEbert.com called A Light Beneath Their Feet a "triumph of empathetic filmmaking" and said, "Regardless of the genre she happens to be tackling, Valerie Weiss is remarkably gifted at portraying the complexity of human relationships."^[10]

Valerie's sci-fi short for her AFI Directing Workshop for Women, TRANSGRESSIONS, won a student BAFTA Award.^[11]

Filmography

Director

Producer

Writer

Actress

^[12]

References

External links

• Valerie Weiss at IMDb